Suzanne Kirkpatrick
Retroreflective Burqa
The Retroreflective Burqa offers a new, alternative design choice to the traditional Afghan burqa garment – a look that is safe, functional, and fashionable.
http://itp.suzkirkpatrick.com/?p=1042
Classes
Project Development Studio (Physical Interaction)
Project Development Studio (Physical Interaction)
The Retroreflective Burqa project aims to empower burqa-wearing women by making carefully selected design changes and low-cost improvements to the traditional Afghan burqa, within the bounds of Sharia law, rendering the garment more versatile, functional, and fashionable.
The burqa is an outer-garment that the majority of Afghan women wear everyday, like a coat or jacket, which should be comfortable to wear, sensitive to the nuances of the everyday landscape and its environment, and culturally appropriate.
By re-thinking certain elements of the garment, I hope to empower Afghan women through carefully selected design choices and to enable these women to remain true to themselves and to their religious and cultural practices. To empower a person is to provide her the opportunity to make choices and decisions regarding her life. In the case of the Afghan burqa, there is currently only one design available to women — the iconic, monolithic burqa. The Retroreflective Burqa offers an innovative, alternative design choice to today’s burqa, thereby giving Afghan women the right to make a choice, express their preferences, and exercise decision-making about a garment that they wear every day.
I hope that this endeavor will also open a dialogue around the issue of women’s empowerment and design. Helping women to make more informed choices regarding the various aspects of their lives, including selecting alternative clothing designs, may lead them to make more informed choices in other aspects of their lives such as health care, education, housing, nutrition, and economic development.
Background
Background research and documentation here: http://itp.suzkirkpatrick.com/?p=926
Audience
Afghan women who wear burqas.
User Scenario
In Afghanistan, public safety on the roads and highways is very low; there are no traffic lights, no street lamps or overhead lights, no sidewalks or curbs, and very few paved roads. Few people have driver’s licenses, and fines for pedestrian violations are non-existent. Thousands of people die each year from roadside injuries, especially at night. Women wearing burqas are likely targets for roadside accidents because they appear as blueish gray silhouettes in the dark. Furthermore, the women cannot easily see oncoming traffic or obstacles in the road through their face veil, and they have difficulty reacting quickly to and protecting their young children from potential roadside hazards. In Afghanistan, there is also a lot of dust, which compounds the low visibility factor. Pedestrians become even less visible in dust clouds, and the dust further inhibits burqa-wearing women’s view of what is around them.
The Retroreflective Burqa project explores ways to improve this visibility problem in order to protect pedestrian women wearing burqas, so that they can be seen better by motor vehicles in the early morning hours, at dusk, and at night, without drawing unnecessary attention to these women from other pedestrians.
Implementation
The burqa is an outer garment worn by Muslim women. I would like to bring in a sample original Afghan burqa, and show it alongside my new garment design, to explain my design choices and my creative process. I would also like to show fabric swatches, photos, and video of women wearing burqas, and some video clips of my "making" the garment. Melody, the seamstress, will also join me for the presentation.
The burqa is an outer-garment that the majority of Afghan women wear everyday, like a coat or jacket, which should be comfortable to wear, sensitive to the nuances of the everyday landscape and its environment, and culturally appropriate.
By re-thinking certain elements of the garment, I hope to empower Afghan women through carefully selected design choices and to enable these women to remain true to themselves and to their religious and cultural practices. To empower a person is to provide her the opportunity to make choices and decisions regarding her life. In the case of the Afghan burqa, there is currently only one design available to women — the iconic, monolithic burqa. The Retroreflective Burqa offers an innovative, alternative design choice to today’s burqa, thereby giving Afghan women the right to make a choice, express their preferences, and exercise decision-making about a garment that they wear every day.
I hope that this endeavor will also open a dialogue around the issue of women’s empowerment and design. Helping women to make more informed choices regarding the various aspects of their lives, including selecting alternative clothing designs, may lead them to make more informed choices in other aspects of their lives such as health care, education, housing, nutrition, and economic development.
Background
Background research and documentation here: http://itp.suzkirkpatrick.com/?p=926
Audience
Afghan women who wear burqas.
User Scenario
In Afghanistan, public safety on the roads and highways is very low; there are no traffic lights, no street lamps or overhead lights, no sidewalks or curbs, and very few paved roads. Few people have driver’s licenses, and fines for pedestrian violations are non-existent. Thousands of people die each year from roadside injuries, especially at night. Women wearing burqas are likely targets for roadside accidents because they appear as blueish gray silhouettes in the dark. Furthermore, the women cannot easily see oncoming traffic or obstacles in the road through their face veil, and they have difficulty reacting quickly to and protecting their young children from potential roadside hazards. In Afghanistan, there is also a lot of dust, which compounds the low visibility factor. Pedestrians become even less visible in dust clouds, and the dust further inhibits burqa-wearing women’s view of what is around them.
The Retroreflective Burqa project explores ways to improve this visibility problem in order to protect pedestrian women wearing burqas, so that they can be seen better by motor vehicles in the early morning hours, at dusk, and at night, without drawing unnecessary attention to these women from other pedestrians.
Implementation
The burqa is an outer garment worn by Muslim women. I would like to bring in a sample original Afghan burqa, and show it alongside my new garment design, to explain my design choices and my creative process. I would also like to show fabric swatches, photos, and video of women wearing burqas, and some video clips of my "making" the garment. Melody, the seamstress, will also join me for the presentation.